Luca Ascani: Difference between revisions

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'''Luca Ascani''' is Chairman and co-Founder of [[Populis]] Ltd, an international online media company specialised in multilingual content on demand. A digital entrepreneur and angel investor, Ascani acts as mentor and investor to a variety of online start-ups.

Ascani is a board member of [[Il Secolo XIX]], an Italian newspaper based in [[Genoa]]; he is a member of Network Finance, a VC fund in France, and one of the main investors in NowFashion, an online fashion magazine.

==Early Career==

===BuyCentral Italy===

Interested in technology and the web, Ascani started his professional career at BuyCentral France in 1999. Shortly after returning to Italy, he founded BuyCentral Italy in Rome in February 2000. As the company’s chairman and partner, he subsequently sold it to web portal Lycos in 2004.

===ADVance===

Shortly after setting up BuyCentral Italy, Ascani launched ADVance in 2002. ADVance rapidly established itself among the top Italian web agencies and in April 2007, Ascani sold the company to Netbooster, a global digital performance marketing agency.

===First Tuesday Italy===

Luca was co-founder and shareholder of First Tuesday Italy, a company involved in the organization of seminars and meetings on Financial and Net Economy topics.

===GoAdvertising or GoAdv===

In 2004, Luca Ascani was approached by Salvatore Esposito to help launch a network of vertical websites. Quickly realizing the opportunities presented, GoAdv (also known as GoAdvertising) was launched in Rome on July 1st 2004. The initial management team included Luca Ascani as the company’s chairman, and Salvatore Esposito as its CEO.

Steadily growing, both in revenues and size, the company was quickly attracted by the Irish capital’s innovative business environment and pool of talented multilingual internet marketers. GoAdv relocated its headquarters from Rome to Dublin in November 2006.

Pan-European from day one, GoAdv’s Italy and UK activities were launched in August 2004. The company quickly expanded. A year after the company’s launch, GoAdv was active in eight European countries including Ireland, UK, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands.

With their eyes fixed on the European market, Ascani and Esposito acquired a number of pan-European web portals including: Better Deals, a European network of shopping guides (February 2006), Excite Europe (October 2007), Nanopublishing, a network of vertical magazines (June 2009), and Blogosfere, Italy’s top blog network (January 2010).

==Populis==

===General Overview===

In October 2010 GoAdv rebranded to become Populis, in order to reflect the company’s new position of European leader in multilingual content on demand. As one of Europe’s largest online multilingual publishers, Populis produces over 35 000 articles and videos monthly across 8 European languages to 26.1 million unique monthly users (comscore January 2011)<ref> Robin Wauters,[http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/populis-reaches-26-million-unique-monthly-visitors-revenues-up-to-58-million-euros/ "Populis reaches 26 million unique monthly visitors, revenues up to 58 million euros"], ''Tech Crunch Europe'', Apr 6, 2011 </ref>

The company is active in 12 different markets across the globe including Ireland, Italy, UK, Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, Sweden, US, Australia, Russia and Brazil.(2010)<ref>Tech Crunch, [http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/populis-europes-demand-media-reports-2010-revenues-of-83-million/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 "Populis, Europe’s Demand Media, Reports 2010 Revenues Of $83 Million"], , Apr 6, 2011 </ref>

===Business Model===

Populis is a new kind of disruptive media company. Combining the science of technology with the art of journalism, Populis produces engaging, quality and commercially attractive online content. Database of 22 million key words together with complex proprietary algorithms analyse what content web users are searching for and predict its value. Based on this analysis, a network of professional staff writers and crowdsourced freelancers create high quality, captivating content.

Populis does not translate and each piece of content is created in the local language of the market in which it will be consumed.

The end result is a blended model of content creation combining premium news articles written by professional journalists and qualitative, engaging crowd-sourced content on demand, based on the most popular search terms of the moment.<ref> Populis Business Model [http://www.populis.com/about]</ref>

===Populis Management===

The Populis management team includes co-founder and chairman Luca Ascani, co-founder and CEO Salvatore Esposito, Managing Director Ireland and Group CFO John Slyne and Managing Director Italy and Group COO Giovanni Fantasia.

== References ==

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{{Reflist}}

== External links ==

* [http://www.populis.com/ www.populis.com]

* [http://www.gpbullhound.com/en/index/ GP Bullhound]

* [http://www.mediamomentum.co.uk/ Media Momentum]

* [http://techcrunch.com/ Tech Cruch]

* [http://www.strategyeye.com/wp/ StrategyEye]

* [http://blogosfere.it/ Blog Network Blogosfere]

* [http://www.nanopublishing.com/ Nanopublishing]

* [http://www.blogo.it/ Blog Network Blogo]

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